One of the goals of the RBMS Controlled Vocabularies Subcommittee is to create a single RBMS Thesaurus and eliminate unnecessary qualifiers. To this end, a full alphabetical list of all terms from the seven thesauri and the relator terms has been generated. This list reveals a number of problems and potential problems. Below is a list of questions and concerns.
[link to list here]
1. What is the difference between Authors' annotations and Authors' inscriptions? What is the difference between Authors' presentation copies and Authors' presentation inscriptions? These four terms are in Provenance Evidence without scope notes.
2. Currently there are a number of duplicate terms. Is it necessary to have the paper terms in Binding Terms?
BT Decorated papers
PT Decorated papers
BT Embossed papers
PT Embossed papers
BT Flock papers
PT Flock papers
BT Marbled papers
PT Marbled papers
BT Paste papers
PT Paste papers
BT Printed papers
PT Printed papers
BT Sprinkled papers
PT Sprinkled papers
BT Stencilled papers
PT Stencilled papers
Is it okay to delete the Binding Term? Or is it better to change "papers" to the single and add the word "bindings" to the end of it, so that:
BT Decorated paper bindings
PT Decorated papers
This needs research. How have libraries used these terms? How disruptive will each change be to current practice? Refer to Papier mache and Papier-mache bindings.
3. There are a number of terms that are found in Provenance Evidence and in other thesauri. Do these need to be qualified? Could we eliminate the term not found in Provenance Evidence?
BT Armorial bindings
PE Armorial bindings
BT Binders' tickets
PE Binders' tickets
PE Booksellers' labels
PPE Booksellers' labels
BT Labels
PE Labels
PE Paper fibers [no SN, not sure how this is used for provenance evidence]
PT Paper fibers
BT Presentation bindings
PE Presentation bindings
This needs research. How have libraries used these terms? How disruptive will each change be to current practice?
4. Other confusions:
Letters in Genre Terms. No SN, "Correspondence" is a UF
Letters in Type Evidence. No SN.
These may need qualifiers
Turned chainlines appears in both Paper Terms and Printing & Publishing Evidence. This term should probably be deleted from Paper Terms.
The term Cipher is in Paper Terms without a scope note. It is a narrower term of Watermarks. What is it? Is the watermark a cipher? This needs some work to clarify the term. N.B. "Ciphers" currently exists in Genre Terms with a scope note.
"Damaged types" exists in both Printing & Publishing Evidence and in Type Evidence. Is this necessary?
"Dates" exists in both Provenance Evidence with a scope note and as a gathering term in Printing & Publishing Evidence. Is there a way to clarify the distinction? Will it be necessary if there is one thesaurus?
Fast day proclamations vs. Fast-day sermons = inconsistent use of hyphen (ANSI/NISO 6.7.2.2)
Papier mache in Paper Terms has an acute accent on final "e" and no hyphen
Papier-mache bindings in Binding Terms has an acute accent "e"; circumflex on "a" of "mache"; and a hyphen
"Printer's reams" placement of the apostrophe is inconsistent with the standard. There are no explanatory notes with this term. It may just be a typo.
"Programme papers" should be spelled "Program papers"
Untrimmed edges is in both Binding Terms and in Paper Terms. Is qualification necessary?
Comments (6)
Nina Schneider said
at 3:56 pm on Jan 14, 2009
David Faulds just pointed out that Engraved Books (approved at Annual 2008) is placed in Printing & Publishing Evidence, without designating a specific thesaurus. He is working on a project to count the number of terms in this thesaurus that are placed in both (that it, in publishing evidence and in printing evidence).
Nina Schneider said
at 2:40 pm on Jan 23, 2009
1. solved through scope notes
ryan.hildebrand@mail.utexas.edu said
at 8:32 am on Apr 14, 2009
1. Agree with Nina's comment: solved through SNs.
ryan.hildebrand@mail.utexas.edu said
at 8:32 am on Apr 14, 2009
2. For these terms we should consider retaining the parenthetical qualifier originally prescribed by each thesaurus. These should already be present in bib records, so retaining them would be the most non-disruptive route. I much prefer this to changing terms.
ryan.hildebrand@mail.utexas.edu said
at 8:33 am on Apr 14, 2009
3. These seem duplicative since the location and physical nature of the evidence is the same regardless of the thesaurus in which the term appears. See SN for "Papers" in rbprov to understand why "Paper fibers" is also in rbprov (SN for "Papers": Use for paper evidence indicating that individual printers, publishers, collectors or owners had their own papers made with identifying fibers or watermarks for their own copies).
ryan.hildebrand@mail.utexas.edu said
at 8:33 am on Apr 14, 2009
4. Letters. Qualifiers would solve the problem. I don't think SNs are needed.
Turned chainlines. Does the term have meaning outside of bibliographical format? Would one describe the chainlines in a piece of paper produced in a double mold as "turned?"
Cipher. I have no idea, but shouldn't it be plural?
Damaged types. Usage is the same regardless of which thesaurus one is using: recording the use of damaged type in printing. A single unqualified entry should be fine.
Dates. If we have to retain the qualifier "(gathering term; do not use)" it will be confusing to see both the authorized entry and the qualified entry for the gathering term. I'm not sure how we might fix this.
"Fast day" terms. We should regularize the terms, especially since indexing is affected in MultiTes.
"Papier mache" terms. Regularize.
Printer's reams. Agree; placement of the apostrophe is incorrect.
"Programme papers" should be spelled "Program papers." Yes, and a USE reference should be made from the former to the latter.
"Untrimmed edges." Isn't this specific to binding? If one has an untrimmed sheet of paper, does one refer to its untrimmed edges as such? If so, I suppose "Untrimmed edges (Paper)" could be used, e.g., for broadsides with deckle edges.
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